Enclosures are used in general to house all types of internal components. For example, enclosures are required to house printed circuit boards (PCBs). Most electronic engineers are knowledgeable when it comes to designing PCBs. However, many times, the mechanical challenge is that the enclosure must be custom designed in order to accommodate the PCB, or other electronic components. This process can be difficult and time consuming. Many electronic engineers do not have the tools required to efficiently design enclosures to accommodate their electronic designs.
Software to aid in the design of various mechanical devices is available. One such program is Front Panel Designer (FPD), owned by Front Panel Express LLC. FPD is a template-based computer-aided design (CAD) tool that incorporates features such as price estimation, online ordering and material selection. Two 2D templates are offered: rectangular and elliptical. This software can be used to design only front panels of enclosures however. The program is not a proper 3D CAD tool that can be used to design full enclosures.
Another program is eMachineShop (eMS) owned by eMachineShop.com. eMS is a custom design tool aimed at permitting users to custom design various mechanical parts, such as parts for bikes, cars, airplanes, etc. The user begins by either drawing the design right in the program itself or importing an existing drawing from a CAD program. This program is therefore difficult to use. Further, the program does not seem to provide any pre-defined system cutouts and holes that can be used during the design process.
Additional programs available include software from GrayTech Software, Inc., various Windows programs available from Freebyte, and various Linux programs. Again however these require the user in effect to build up the design from scratch.